Catastrophe, Chaos, Complexity, Theory

Catastrophe, Chaos, Complexity, Theory

Richard J. F. Day and Guy Kirby Letts

Introduction

omplexity theory is being put to use in various and contradictory ways in the natural

and social sciences and humanities. Scientific proponents of complexity champion it as a

new 'theory of everything' which is capable of explaining biological evolution,

consciousness, weather patterns, earthquakes, revolutions, social change, and the stock

market (Coveney & Highfield, 1995; Waldrop, 1992). Here complexity appears as a

totalizing narrative mimetically invested with the residue of foundationalism, scientism,

positivism, and objectivism. Working in opposition to this tendency, others have

declared that complexity represents a paradigm shift that challenges the Newtonian

world view with a revaluation of uncertainty and holism (Capra, 1996; Hayles, 1990).

Beyond the wet dreams of applied science to master chaos and squeeze the dynamics of

life into a neat equation, complexity theory has also been applied in other disciplines, to

the study of organizations, information and technology, AI, history, literature, and

pedagogy to name a few (Abraham, 1994; Campbell, 1982; Kuberski, 1994; Lanham,

1993; Lewin, 1992; Wheatley, 1992).

So far, critical social theory has made sparse use of insights from the complexity

paradigm, although Lyotard devotes Section 13 of The Postmodern Condition to

"Postmodern Science as the Search for Instabilities," and Slavoj Zizek has toyed with an

analogy between the Lacanian object (a) and the strange attractor (Zizek 1991:38). The

'discovery' of complexity also coincides with the emergence of heterologies (de Certeau,

1986), genealogies (Foucault, 1979), nomadologies (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988) and the

decentred subject (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). In most of these cases, though, there is

nothing more than a kinship -- that might well be spurious -- discernible in the use of a

familiar term, phrase, or concept.

One of the few social theorists who have explicitly engaged complexity theory is

Anthony Wilden, who has grafted Gregory Bateson's notion of the dependent hierarchy

C

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C a t a s t r o p h e , C h a o s , C o m p l e x i t y , T h e o r y | 2

onto Marxian ideology critique to come up with his own method of critical analysis of

social phenomena (Wilden, 1980;1981). After introducing some central concepts of

complexity theory, we will present an exposition and evaluation of Wilden's project. We

will then turn to face a critique that is difficult to avoid, raging across the open plains

and wielding the sword of Nietzsche's attack on the rational-scientific

anthropomorphization of nature. This force from the outside, Deleuze and Guattari's

nomadology, says: sedentary fools! You're trying to find land, avert your gaze from the

abyss, eff the ineffable, coax the silence into speech. Having visited both the temple and

the steppes, we will then see in the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe an

application of complexity to social theory that partakes of neither one nor the other

exclusively, but includes both in a contradictory but coherent theory of discourse,

subjectivity, identity, and action.

Catastrophe, Chaos, Complexity

This section is intended to provide background for readers who are unfamiliar with

complexity theory. In the interest of brevity and clarity, we will not attempt to cover the

entire field, but will include only those terms and concepts that are necessary to

understand what follows. First, the title of the paper should be expanded. As a

mathematical formalism, catastrophe theory deals with sudden transitions from one

minimum potential state of stable equilibrium to another (Woodcock, 1978:46-47). As an

example of a catastrophic event, consider the dropping of grains of sand onto a pile.

Most of the time, the pile just grows, achieving its characteristic cone-shaped form. But,

every once in a while, unpredictably and unreproducibly, the addition of one grain of

sand will trigger an avalanche that massively redistributes the pile, then subsides. Such

an event is called a catastrophe. We are familiar with these events in everyday life, in the

failure of overloaded computer networks, human relationships, and even social systems

and empires.

While catastrophe theory examines change from one stable state to another, chaos theory

looks at unstable states. Chaotic systems are collections of multiple orderly subsystems,

which are flexible because they can switch rapidly and unpredictably between many

different states. However, while chaotic systems may be unpredictable, they are

deterministic. That is, if two identical systems have the same initial conditions they will

produce the same output (Ditto & Pecora, 1993:78). The classic example of a chaotic

system is the weather, which despite much modeling and coaxing, still defies prediction

beyond days or even hours into the future.

Complexity theory is concerned with how ordered, complex systems spontaneously

emerge out of chaotic systems, and thus provides a metatheory that encompasses both

catastrophe and chaos. This spontaneous emergence of forms is often referred to as self-

organization, or emergent complexity. Complex systems, then, are not merely


complicated, static objects, but non-linear, spontaneous, self-organizing, systems (Ditto

& Pecora, 1993:78-79; Waldrop, 1992:11-12). What makes complexity theory unique is its

ability to account for the structure, coherence, and self-organizing processes of such

systems, of which the genetic code is a prime example. Out of a primordial soup of

inorganic elements, it gives rise to a rich and ever-changing diversity of forms of life.

The adaptiveness of complex systems is one of their most important qualities, as Peter

Allen points out in the following passage.

[Complexity] is about 'adaptability' and the capacity to become aware that circumstances

have changed and to produce new solutions. Not only that, it is also true that this ability

to produce innovation and change will drive circumstances of others and drive evolution

itself... (1994: 584).

Rather than passively responding to events, complex systems interact with their

environment. Indeed, complexity is characteristically found in systems that are able to

exist at the boundary between order and chaos and to strike a balance between these

two regimes that is never quite stable and yet never quite turbulent (Hayles, 1991:13-14;

Prigogine, 1984:115-117; Waldrop, 1992:11-12, 293). As Waldrop has described it, "the

edge of chaos is the constantly shifting battle zone between stagnation and anarchy, the

one place where complex systems can be spontaneous, adaptive, and alive" (1992:12).

Fundamental to the process of increased complexity and the emergence of spontaneous

self-organization is the role of the agent. In complexity theory, systems are seen as being

made up of a network of agents that act in parallel. It is important, here, to think of

agents as a plurality. That is, agents can be either individuals or collectivities. For

example, households, cities, provinces, or countries can all be seen as agents depending

on what level or system one is examining. Regardless of the category though, the

environment of the agent is produced through interactions with other agents within a

given system. That is, agents are constantly acting and reacting to what other agents are

doing in the system. Because of this, the environment is always dynamic, fluid, and

unfixed. Moreover, the agents themselves have to be dispersed (as opposed to being

centralized) if there is to be any coherent behaviour in the system. The notion that

coherent behaviour can only arise out of competition and cooperation among agents

themselves is thus central to complexity theory (Waldrop, 1992:145).

Finally, in any adaptive, complex system there are many levels of organization wherein

agents at one level serve as the "building blocks" for agents at a higher level. For

instance, individual workers make up a department, several departments make up a

division, and several divisions make up a company, and so forth. What is of importance

here is that adaptive, complex systems continually revise and reorder building blocks as

each level of organization gains more experience similar to the modification,


reorganization, and adaptation that occurs in the process of evolution. Whether we are

speaking of cells, neurons, organisms, politics, or economics, the processes of learning,

evolving, and adapting are the same within each level of organization (Waldrop,

1992:145-146).

In summary, complexity theory takes as its subject matter the unpredictable and creative

emergence of order out of chaos in natural, cultural, and social systems. Generally,

adaptive self-organization takes place in a population of independent agents. Through

the exchange and interaction of cooperation and competition, these agents become

increasingly interdependent which results in the spontaneous emergence of new

structures. The emergence of novel structures not only raises a system's complexity to a

higher level, but provides the foundation necessary for the emergence of yet another

level of complexity.

Complexity, World, and Non-World

The notion that there are 'levels' of existence has a long history, which can be traced into

the depths of Western cosmology. A distinction is commonly made between chaos and

order, void and occupied space, chronology and eternity, thus: in the beginning was the

word, first thought, big bang, some moment at which world emerges out of non-world

and history begins. Here two levels of complexity are posited, one of which provides the

conditions of emergence for the other. But, more importantly, the level of 'world' is seen

as significant for human being, while that of 'non-world' is perpetually clouded. Though

hidden from view, non-world harangues and harasses world, perhaps most

compellingly in its call for dissolution, relaxation, a return to destructuration and the

void.

In this section we will address two attempts to theorize the order-chaos pair, Anthony

Wilden's method of "dependent hierarchies", and Deleuze and Guattari's

"stratoanalysis." Both make use of the notion of structured and structuring levels, but

each places emphasis and value on a different side of the world / non-world coin.

Wilden's work, with its focus on order and signification, will be presented first,

primarily because it displays characteristics that Deleuze and Guattari explicitly take to

task in defining their own project. Taken together, these two approaches highlight some

of the issues relevant to the application of complexity theory to critical, interdisciplinary

analysis, and provide a basis for a theorization of both order and chaos, and the relations

between them.

A concise summary of Wilden's take on complexity theory can be found in his 1980

article "Semiotics as praxis: strategy and tactics." Explicitly under the influence of

Gregory Bateson, Wilden appears as a sort of critical cyberneticist, a seeker of true and

correct descriptions of the behaviour of social and natural systems, in the interest of


human emancipation and survival. What makes his work "critical" will be discussed

later. For now, we will focus on its roots in cybernetic explanation, which are displayed

in the attention paid to information and communication.

The human context ... includes dreams, perceptions, hopes, visions, and fantasies.... Our

context also includes the information ceaselessly communicated at the genetic and

neurological levels of organisms, as well as at the biological and ecological levels of our

life-support system on the planet Earth (Wilden, 1980:2).

Here the category of 'information' is used to cut across the boundaries that traditionally

separate discussions of physical, biological, and social-psychological phenomena.

For Wilden, these realms are both separate and joined, in a very particular way that he

refers to as a "dependent hierarchy." Three levels are distinguished: inorganic nature,

which he does not define explicitly; organic nature, which is defined differentially from

the inorganic by the presence of the DNA-RNA system; and society, which "is marked

by the historical evolution of human kinship systems, along with languages capable of

naming and articulating kinship categories" (1980:3). Wilden presents these relationships

iconically, using the symbol to describe a relation of enabling, structuring constraint

across a permeable boundary.

Inorganic nature is seen as a necessary basis for the emergence of organic nature: RNA,

DNA, cells, organisms. Thus Wilden would say that inorganic nature provides an

environment for organic nature, just as, in everyday language, we say that organic

nature provides an environment for human society.

It is important to note that the boundaries between levels are defined as permeable, that

matter/energy and information flow across them in both directions -- the levels denote

partially open systems. Thus it should always be assumed that there are "arrows" of

communication flowing in both directions.

It is also important to note that, for Wilden, as we move from the top to the bottom of

the diagram we are moving from orders of lesser to greater complexity. In an effort to

avoid the metaphorical entailments of top = good = God he has inverted the spatial

layout we would immediately recognize as the Great Chain of Being. But even without

being 'on top', human society is obviously being endowed with the quality of 'highest'

complexity.

This hierarchical ordering has further implications that are summarized in what Wilden

calls the Extinction Rule. "To test for the orientation of a dependent hierarchy, mentally

abolish each level in turn, and note which other levels will necessarily become extinct if

it becomes extinct" (1980:4). Using this rule, one can tell if one has things the right way

up, and it seems to apply nicely here: who would argue, especially given the recent


commodification of 'environmentalism', that human society can survive without nature?

Or, given the popular acceptance of genetic theories, that organic life could do without

its proteins and nucleotides? Wilden thus makes a strong claim: "Nature ... belongs at

the top of this dependent hierarchy, and its position there is the result of necessity, not

of theory" (1980:4).

Leaving aside the problem of how such a "necessity" might be constituted, proven, and

agreed upon in explicitly political contexts -- such as those in which debates over land

and resource use are placed -- Wilden introduces the term "symmetrization" to describe

what happens when a "real" hierarchy is flattened out into an "imaginary" single level. In

the case of nature and society, symmetrization would involve the pretense that human

society and nature are on the same level, and could therefore be in a relation of

opposition to one another. Taking this a step further, it is possible for the symmetrized

hierarchy to be "inverted," thus placing humanity on top of nature. For Wilden,

inversion and symmetrization errors are "products of a reductionist strategy of thought,

misguided and imaginary because it crosses boundaries between distinct types or orders

of complexity without recognizing them" (1980:12).

Symmetrization and inversion errors, then, result from a particular sort of

misrecognition, or misconnaissance. But a misrecognition of what? Of the way things

"really are?" Or of the way the architect of the hierarchy thinks they should be? To be

fair, Wilden acknowledges that language is just one of many systems of communication,

and it is within discourses that relations of power are worked out; but he does not

explicitly place discourses in his hierarchy. This is perhaps because doing so opens up a

whole series of difficulties. For example, if we consider that all of the three orders

Wilden names are discursive constructs, then there is no 'correct' way to order them. All

orderings would be effects of power, and the ordering proposed by a theory of

dependent hierarchies could not be established as more "correct" than any ordering,

symmetrization, or inversion, produced by a different theory.

This deficiency is addressed in a revision of the article, where Wilden adds a fourth level

to his diagram. Emerging out of society, which is defined in Marxist terms as a

socioeconomic mode of production (base), we find culture (superstructure), which

"unlike the other orders of complexity ... can be symbolic and imaginary, as well as real"

(Wilden, 1982:168). The revised diagram and explanation suggests that for Wilden,

discourses, and therefore the potential for (mis)recognition of hierarchies, exist only at

the level of culture. The other orders of complexity partake only of the real; their

characteristics are knowable and sharable by all who are capable of 'recognizing' them.

This theorization of the real poses a problem of interpretation, particularly since Wilden

repeatedly uses it in juxtaposition with the imaginary and the symbolic, which implies

that these terms should be read in a Lacanian context. In this context, Wilden claims, in

his commentary on Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis, that "the Real is not


synonymous with external reality, but with what is real for the subject" (Wilden,

1968:161). But this directly contradicts the way the term is used in "Semiotics as Praxis,"

where it has lost the initial capital and appears to function as a marker of some sort of

objective reality. Similarly, the term "imaginary" has taken on much more of a

connotation of falsehood, or lack of reality, than it has with Lacan. Again, the influence

of a Marxian dichotomy between true and false consciousness seems to have thwarted

Wilden's will to inclusive, both/and modes of thought.

To rescue the Real from such Marxist readings, and to open up the possibility of a

gesture towards that which cannot be ordered, but is always ordering itself, we must

turn to Slavoj Zizek's reading of Lacan in Looking Awry (Zizek, 1991). We must think of

the Real as an 'order' which, Zizek suggests, would appear to a (fictional) human

observer as a "grey and formless mist, pulsing slowly as if with inchoate life" (1991:39).

We must be content to believe, without understanding, that the Real, as non-Being, is

undifferentiated and chaotic. How, then, is signification possible? In the Lacanian

scheme, the human subject appears as an ongoing attempt to recover the lost object of

the Real, to partition an ineffable Reality into significant objects and relations: in short, to

effect an illusory realization of the Real. But, if the Real were mere void, it would be

unable to provide an environment out of which the possibility of signification could

emerge. Perhaps, then, it would be instructive to conceptualize the Real as a system

poised on the edge of chaos and order, and therefore capable of giving rise to a subtle

and intimate enfoldment of levels, a multi-dimensional complex of structures and

processes of mutual interaction. This would require adding another level to Wilden's

diagram, a level of highest constraint, out of which inorganic nature -- and everything

else that 'is' -- emerges.

But why try to theorize that which is not a 'thing', that which we cannot know, that

which does not signify? Wilden, at least in his work so far, has not found a reason to

approach the Real. Deleuze and Guattari, however, have: simply because of its ubiquity

and its importance for life, its ongoing availability as a line of flight from order,

hierarchy, series, knowledge -- what they call the "strata." In "10,000 B.C. : The Geology

of Morals" (Chapter 3 of A Thousand Plateau) they provide a theory of stratification that

bears a certain resemblance to Wilden's, for example in its definition of an "axiomatics"

that deals with three "major types of strata": the geological / chemical, the organic, and

the linguistic (1988:64). Their means of defining the distinctions between these strata,

though based on a more general theorization of form, content, matter, substance, and

expression, are also similar to Wilden's, in that a certain "unity of composition" is

sought. On the geological-chemical stratum, the basis for unity is found in the fact that

"molar," or human-scaled forms, can be said to express microscopic molecular

interactions, as in the example of the crystal. The organic stratum is characterized by the

linear, spatial form of coding found in the DNA-RNA system, which is exemplified in

the form of the biological cell. Finally, the linguistic stratum displays temporal linearity,

and is the exclusive realm of signs and language.


Like Wilden's method of dependent hierarchies, Deleuze and Guattari's stratoanalysis

displays an awareness of the complexist notions of emergence and self-similarity. Strata

"come at least in pairs, one serving as substratum for the other," and strata themselves

are "at least double", in that they are themselves composed of other strata (1988:40). On

the question of inside vs. outside, they take down the binary distinction and speak

instead of open boundaries, or membranes: "interior and exterior exchange places, and

both are interior ... the limit between them is the membrane that regulates the exchanges

and transformations in organization" (1988:50).

Deleuze and Guattari also address the question of whether signs and signification can be

found at all levels, and their answer is quite clear: they cannot. Only on the linguistic

level can "translation" occur, which is defined not only as the ability of one language to

(more or less adequately) represent what is given in another, but also as "the ability of

language, with its own givens on its own stratum, to represent all the other strata and

thus achieve a scientific conception of the world" (1988:62). This is possible because, in

language, "the same form can pass from one substance to another, which is not the case

for the genetic code, for example, between RNA and DNA chains" (1988:62). Language,

in its infinite malleability, is capable of producing "the illusion constitutive of man"

(1988:63), which is quite clearly the basis for symmetrizations and inversions. In these

features, their theorization is very similar to Wilden's.

There are differences, however. For Wilden, levels of complexity are always arranged in

hierarchies, with one emerging out of the other, always in the same order, and with

increasing complexity each time a new emergence occurs. For Deleuze and Guattari, this

would be precisely an expression of the illusion constitutive of man. In a sustained

attack they take to task this sort of hierarchical thinking.

It is difficult to elucidate the system of the strata without seeming to introduce a kind of

cosmic or even spiritual evolution from one to the other, as if they were arranged in

stages and ascended degrees of perfection.... If one begins by considering the strata in

themselves, it cannot be said that one is less organized than another (1988:69).

Not only does the notion of increasing complexity go down, the Extinction Rule and the

possibility of getting things the right way around are dismissed as well. "There is no

fixed order, and one stratum can serve directly as a substratum for another without the

intermediaries one would expect there to be from the standpoint of stages and degrees."

Finally, the basis for the ordering of a hierarchy is questioned: "the apparent order can

be reversed", and "you can't even tell in advance which stratum is going to communicate

with which other, in what direction" (1988:69).

Deleuze and Guattari's world, though similar to Wilden's in displaying discrete levels, is

a much messier, livelier place, and this is a direct consequence of their explicit attention


to non-world, which they name as the "plane of consistency" or the "body without

organs" (BwO). While the strata are about "territorialization", they are also constantly

subject to "deterritorialization", to what we might think of as magmatic intrusions from

an underworld that shakes, folds, bends, and breaks. Thus, where Wilden's levels of

complexity rest upon a stable, unquestioned foundation of "inorganic nature," Deleuze

and Guattari's strata emerge out of, and subside into, the nameless void. "The strata are

judgments of God; stratification in general is the entire system of the judgment of God

(but the earth, or the body without organs, constantly eludes that judgment, flees and

becomes destratified, decoded, deterritorialized)" (1988:40).

Of course, as soon as we turn towards the void, distinguish it from the human world, we

are forced into reciting something like a creation myth, and this is perhaps why the

question is side-stepped in the cybernetic version of complexity theory. Such theological

concerns are simply outside the purview of science. Or are they? Deleuze and Guattari

claim -- perhaps not entirely ironically -- that stratoanalysis is a science, and they are not

afraid to speak about DNA, reaction rates, and theories of evolution. So how do they get

around the problem of the origin of space and time? What, for them, allows for the

transition(s) from non-world to world and back again?

The boundary between strata and the BwO is a "surface of stratification" that is variously

described as "a more compact plane of consistency lying between two layers," a

thickening of the BwO, and a "machinic assemblage distinct from the strata" (1988:40). A

sort of boundary layer that expresses some of the possibilities of the BwO in the form of

strata. According to Deleuze and Guattari, particular machinic assemblages "effectuate,"

"express," or "concretize" the body without organs, in the sense that the BwO is the

abstract machine. "To express is to sing the glory of God" (1988:43). Also, particular

machinic assemblages effectuate particular abstract machines, as in the case of the

Abstract Animal that underlies the organic stratum. Thus, for each stratum there is a

single abstract machine at the centre, but "you can't reach the centre" (1988:50). If you

try, you will find nothing, or everything. Take your pick. You will find yourself on the

plane of consistency, where distinction is simply not possible. To render Deleuze and

Guattari's description iconically would require something like a series of rings,

composed of turbulent "epistrata" and "parastrata," that make possible human

experience of an abstract machine embedded at an inaccessible centre, emerging out of a

primordial, omnipresent, and eternal "soup" of "unformed, unstable matters, flows in all

directions, free intensities or nomadic singularities, mad or transitory particles"

(1988:40). An ordered chaos. An impossible home. A beckoning. A lack.

In "The Geology of Morals" Deleuze and Guattari do not do more than gesture towards

the plane of consistency, but the force and frequency of these gestures leads us to believe

that it has great significance. Looking to "587 B.C. - A.D. 70", the fifth chapter of A

Thousand Plateaus, life on the strata is enunciated in a Lacanian-Hegelian frame of

alienation from the Absolute.


The principal strata binding human beings are the organism, significance, and

interpretation, and subjectification and subjection. These strata together are what

separates us from the plane of consistency and the abstract machine, where there is no

longer any regime of signs, where the line of flight effectuates its own potential positivity

and deterritorialization its absolute power (1988:134).

Given this necessary immersion in reality, in shit and subjection, how can we resist the

siren song of the body without organs?

The problem, from this standpoint, is to tip the most favourable assemblage from its side

facing the strata to its side facing the plane of consistency or the body without organs.

Subjectification carries desire to such a point of excess and unloosening that it must

either annihilate itself in a black hole or change planes. Destratify, open up a new

function ... make consciousness an experimentation in life, and passion a field of

continuous intensities, an emission of particle-signs" (1988:134).

Deleuze and Guattari seem to suggest that it's sometimes necessary to accept a little

death, in order to avoid the big death, to escape the Priest in his temple and establish a

line of flight towards the steppe.

To paraphrase Deleuze and Guattari's estimate of a debate in nineteenth century

anatomy, Wilden is a man of Power and Terrain, however much he may be on the side

of the proletariat, nature, and woman, while Deleuze and Guattari not only prefigure,

but attempt to embody, the nomadic man of speed. Wilden lives in the modern world of

Marx and ideology critique, where being able to prove that one has things right-side-up

is of utmost importance. Deleuze and Guattari live in the postmodern world of

Nietzsche, where it is most important to escape proof, scorch the ground of logic, and

pillage metaphorical houses. The tensions between these two approaches obviously run

deep, but it is only customary, and not in any way necessary to see them as in

opposition. In fact, one of the most important contributions that complexity theory can

make to the social sciences and humanities is to revalue contradictory, both-and modes

of analysis and action. Must we choose between Wilden's scientific modernism and

Deleuze and Guattari's poetic postmodernism? We think not. Depending upon the task

at hand, one might like to make use of either of these tools, or perhaps even both of

them at the same time, leaving the contradictions in place and not attempting any sort of

'synthesis' that would 'reconcile' them and drain each of its particularity. We see

complexity theory, then, as being both modern and postmodern, and would like to see

this contradictory position not only maintained, but pushed to its limits, where it might

slide over into a chaotic regime and give rise to forms not yet imagined.


Always Already Neither/Both, Modern/Postmodern

One example of a new form in social theory can be found in Laclau and Mouffe's theory

of the S/subject in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985). In this section we discuss the

parallels between complexity theory and Laclau and Mouffe's subject in/of discourse. By

reading Laclau and Mouffe through the lens of complexity theory we hope to

demonstrate the similarities or blurring between them and, the way in which complexity

theory can be utilized as a means of resolving modern/postmodern political tensions

through a neither/both perspective.

For Laclau and Mouffe the term "subject" refers to various subject positions within

discursive structures. If, however, the subject is made up of a multiplicity of discursive

positions, such positions cannot be completely fixed in a closed system of difference.

Thus, the subject, according to Laclau and Mouffe, cannot be the origin of social

relations because the experiences necessary for social relations depend on pre-defined

discursive conditions and possibilities (1985:115). This is in sharp contrast to the

modernist individual which was thought to be rational, unified, and the origin of her

own social relations. Laclau and Mouffe articulate the modernist conception of the

individual as, "the view of the subject as an agent both rational and transparent to itself;

the supposed unity and homogeneity of the ensemble of its positions; and the

conception of the subject as origin and basis of social relations..." (1985:115). In this

sense, Laclau and Mouffe's subject not only deconstructs the notion of a bound and

orderly essential identity premised on mechanistic or organic models, but also rejects the

Parmenidean principle of totalization as asserted by Hegel (1985:94, 126).

For Laclau and Mouffe, the focus on subject positions, rather than on the 'totalized' or

'detotalized' subject, allows subject positions to act as sites of resistance and praxis, and

simultaneously overcomes the discursive binary (1985:114-16). The problems associated

with a totalized, essential, unified subject or 'individual' have been much discussed;

however, what is not so clear are the problems associated with a theory of decentred

subjectivity. Laclau and Mouffe believe that if we want to avoid saying that either the

subject or subject positions are not discursive then we must make a distinction between

the two (1985:114-15). The individual of modernity was not discursive per se but rather,

master over her behaviours, actions, and roles. However, with the recent turn towards

discursive theories of subjectivity, the subject must necessarily be discursive. This no

longer makes 'the individual an agent' but 'the subject a structure' (in the most general

sense). If the subject is nothing but a structure, it has no agency and no means of praxis.

By decentring the subject, the problem of a bound, discursive subject diminishes, but not

the problem of discursiveness itself. That is, the subject is no longer totalized under one

discursive discourse or practice but rather, the decentred subject becomes the product of

multiple discursive discourses (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985:115).


While an improvement over essentialism, the problem of discursive practices defining

subject positions still exists. And again, the problem of agency. If it can no longer be said

that the subject is discursive, but discursive practices exist, then subject positions must

be discursive. However, Laclau and Mouffe acutely observe that while subject positions

may be discursive, the multiplicity of those positions cannot be housed within a larger

discursive discourse (1985:115-16). Such a discourse, by its nature, cannot exist because

as a discourse it is discursive, and if discursive it is bound and limited. The vast

multiplicity of possible combinations of subject positions, however, exceeds any

limitation. Thus, a discursive discourse of difference which would accommodate all the

various subject positions and their recombination cannot exist within the context of its

own logic. That is, you cannot have a 'structure' that purports to accommodate unbound

multiplicity because the nature of the structure itself negates other various possibilities.

For Laclau and Mouffe, you can essentialize a totality (like the modernist individual) but

you cannot essentialize the elements found in the various positions of the subject

(1985:115-116). To do so brings us back to the same problem presented in the modernist

version of the subject. For Laclau and Mouffe then, subject positions are situated in

discursive practices, but the subject -- as a field -- remains detotalized and non-

discursive (or as they more accurately define it, 'partially' discursive but not 'totally'

fixed (1985:115-16).

Mouffe clarifies the idea of 'partial fixations' in her essay "Feminism, Citizenship and

Radical Democratic Politics" (1992). She notes that underlying the subject is a double

movement: one whereby the process of decentring prevents the 'fixation' (a site of

cohesion) of the subject around a pre-constituted point (or a totalizing, discursive

practice); and the other whereby nodal points and partial fixations (via discursive

subject positions) limit the flux of the signified under the signifier (S/s). She describes

this movement (the opposition between nonfixity/fixation) as a 'dialectic', wherein the

synthesis of identity can be seen as neither and both fixed and unfixed (Mouffe,

1992:371). For Mouffe, this is possible only because fixity is not predetermined and

"because no centre of subjectivity precedes the subject's identifications" (1992:371). Thus,

subject positions are constituted through unstable discursive structures because of

'articulatory' practices that constantly subvert, shift and transform those positions within

the broader field of the subject. In other words, the subject cannot be "nailed down"

because it is shifting between various positions, nor can the subject itself be totalized. In

this way, there are no subject positions between individuals that are assured, and no

social identity that is permanent. However, Mouffe points out that this does not mean

we can no longer use categories like "working-class", "women", or "blacks" that mark or

signify collective subjects, only that such categories should be viewed as non-essentialist

or having no common essence (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985:118-19; 1992:373). Rather, they

should be seen as 'family resemblances' whereby their unity is "the result of the partial

fixation of identities through the creation of nodal points" (Mouffe, 1992:373).


Our reading of Laclau and Mouffe's theory of subjectivity suggests that the subject is a

non-linear, spontaneous, disordered, adaptive, complex system. In the distinction

between subject positions and the subject, Laclau and Mouffe note that subject positions

are pre-determined by discursive practices while the subject remains detotalized, yet

partially fixed. In this respect, the subject resembles a chaotic system from which an

ordered, complex being emerges. In our earlier discussion of chaos and complexity, it

was noted that chaotic systems are comprised of a multitude of orderly behaviours. The

'field' of the subject, then, becomes a chaotic system that is dynamic and flexible. This

flexibility not only allows the subject to engage in various subject positions or practices,

but also to adaptively respond to various discourses and practices.

Though the subject itself is a chaotic field, subject positions are comprised of a

multiplicity of ordered discursive practices that make up the chaotic field of the subject.

However, in the same way that we cannot predict the outcome of a chaotic system, we

cannot predict the 'outcome' of the subject or subject formation. Given that the subject is

a chaotic field, it is also deterministic in terms of its outcome if multiple subjects are

given the exact same initiators. The subject as self-similar twin comes to mind here.

However, even twins are not identical. As Laclau and Mouffe point out, the multiplicity

of possible subject positions that make up the field of the subject are unlimited. The

problem with suggesting that the subject has a deterministic outcome is two fold: first,

the subject is transitory and has no fixed 'outcome' except for death; and second, the

subject is produced through infinite interactions and inputs with other subjects,

discourses, and practices. But to stop here is to simply imply that the subject is

completely detotalized and decentred, the very thing Laclau and Mouffe are trying to

avoid.

The subject is not merely an unstable, chaotic system or turbulent flow: rather, the

subject, like all complex systems, is the spontaneous emergence of an ordered field or

space which is self-organized and coherent. That is, the formation of a complex subject

emerges out of a chaotic state. While the individual of modernity was situated in a state

of equilibrium, the subject is characterized by perpetual novelty as it flows across

various subject positions and discursive practices. Laclau and Mouffe's claim that you

can essentialize a totality but not the elements found in the various positions of the

subject, however, is more complicated. As we have already stated, the subject as

singular is unique unto itself and thus precludes any essentialized totality when we

speak of the subject as plural. However, what is important here is the concept of the

subject itself. What Laclau and Mouffe seem to be saying throughout their discussion is

that the subject is greater than the sum of its subject positions. Though this is consistent

with a reading of complexity, the notion that the subject is not a totality is misleading.

Here, the notion of totality has a double meaning for Laclau and Mouffe: one is the

single process of 'the totality of the universe of differences' which is embedded in

Hegelian dialectics, and the other is a term used to denote a more generalized state

associated with an identity that is essential, unified, discursive, closed, fixed, or centred.


For Laclau and Mouffe totality becomes a point of philosophical contention within a

broader counter-tradition which rejects the Paramenidean principle that leads to the

'spirit's' conquest of the world found in Hegelian dialectics (de Certeau, 1986:vii-viii,

xviii-xix; Laclau and Mouffe, 1985:94-95, 97, 123, 126). However, despite Laclau and

Mouffe's debate with Hegel's logical character of dialectical transitions, what do we call

a collection of discontinuous articulations that make-up the field of the subject if such an

entity cannot be described as a totality?

While it seems fairly clear that Laclau and Mouffe see subject positions and discursive

practices--which the subject adheres to through partial fixations--as being totalities, the

subject itself is not. Or is it? The subject as the emergence of self-organized space is, in

fact, a totality in that it claims to be a holistic entity, albeit an interdependent one.

Though they clearly imply that the subject is neither/both totalized or detotalized--much

in the same way that a complex system is neither/both unified or fragmented--the

subject does exist in relation to other subjects as well as something other than what it is

like not to be a subject. The problem here is that this thing we call a subject has been

totalized through the act of descriptive categorization (found in the statement: "the

subject, according to Laclau and Mouffe, is...."), even though that totality is described as

the totality of non-totality. This problem comes up again in Laclau and Mouffe's

discussions on the nature of a discursive discourse of difference. Thus, it is of little, if

any, surprise that we should encounter this same problem in complexity theory.

Proponents of complexity theory position it as a totalizing theory or theory of

everything. However, while complexity theory is seen as a totality, it is a totality of

difference and ambiguity. Not only does this pose a contradiction in the same way that a

discursive discourse of difference does, but seems to contradict the laws associated with

complexity theory itself -- a similar critique levelled against Hegel by Laclau and Mouffe

(1985:95). Here the idea of 'multidimensional phase space' and the 'edge of chaos'

become relevant. These spaces not only allow for a plurality of legitimate perspectives

which are necessary for the formation of diversity, but have the unique property of

being able to balance order and chaos simultaneously. Thus, not only can the subject of

complexity exist within a contradictory state, but contradiction itself becomes a

necessary component in the formation of the subject and in understanding the binary

patternings that occur in complex systems. In other words, contradiction is a key

concept and essential element in both Laclau and Mouffe's subject and complexity

theory. Thus, it can be stated that while the subject is indeed a totality, it is

simultaneously not a totality.

Another point that Laclau and Mouffe point out is that not all discursive practices are

created equal (1985:116-15). That is, some discursive practices are overdetermined, while

others are not. The role of the theorist then, is to acknowledge that overdetermination

functions as a nodal point from which various humanizing social practices have risen

while simultaneously recognizing the frailty of such humanist values through their


dispersion. In this way, one is able to be critical of the dispersions of various positions

and also illustrate the relations of overdetermination that exist between them (Laclau &

Mouffe, 1985:116-117). Laclau and Mouffe summarize this point in the following

passage:

'Man' is a fundamental nodal point from which it has been possible to proceed, since the

enlightenment century, to the 'humanization' of a number of social practices. To insist

on the dispersion of the positions from which 'Man' has been produced, constitutes only a

first moment; in a second stage, it is necessary to show the relations of overdetermination

and totalization that are established among these. The non-fixity or openness of the

system of discursive differences is what makes possible these effects of analogy and

interpretation (1985:117).

For Laclau and Mouffe, the notion of overdetermination extends beyond 'Man' to the

subject of feminism and, presumably, race, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality (1985:117).

Once essentialisms and pre-constituted categories of oppression are precluded from

inquiry, the attempts to isolate particular institutions and practices of oppression which

produce 'women' will cease to be an issue. Having said that, Laclau and Mouffe believe

this will enable feminist politics to exist within a much broader field (1985:117).

However, if such dispersion is left unchecked it simply leads to a heterogeneity of

difference that bares no relation to one another. Thus, while totalizing categories should

always be questioned, it is also necessary to acknowledge the role that

overdetermination plays in producing systemic divisions. Despite the multiplicity of

subjects, these systemic divisions (like that between feminine and masculine) are

necessary in the creation of systems which, though the imaginary, produce concrete

effects for political action within the diversity of social practices (Laclau & Mouffe,

1985:117-18).

For Laclau and Mouffe then, political agency for the subject exists between fixity and

nonfixity and between overdetermination and disparity (1985:121). As they point out,

representation is therefore constituted not as a definitive type of relation, but as a field of

unstable oscillation whose vanishing point is, as we saw, either the literalization of the

fiction through the breaking of every link between representative and represented, or

the disappearance of the separate identity of both through their absorption as moments

of a single identity (1985:121). In this way, Laclau and Mouffe overcome the relativism of

the subject as political agent and the totalized essential individual of modernism. Key to

this rejoinder is Laclau and Mouffe's distinction between the discursive practices of

dispersive subject positions and the overdetermined discursive categories of the

totalized individual. Thus, the category of the subject cannot be established through

either the "absolutization of a dispersion of subject positions," nor through the

"absolutist unification" of a 'transcendental subject' (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985:121). As a

result, closure of a discursive totality no longer occurs at the objective level because it

cannot be established at the 'meaning-giving' level of the subject if the subjectivity of the


agent cannot be fixed to any point of the discursive totality of which it is apart. It is

within this field that hegemonic articulation and political praxis become possible (Laclau

& Mouffe, 1985:121-22; Mouffe, 1992:382).

For Laclau and Mouffe, social relations are bound and dependent on pre-defined

discursive conditions. However, while the subject positions and practices that inform

social relations maybe discursive, they are not static. Here, it is useful to think of subject

positions and discursive practices as discourses that are bound randomness. In a manner

of speaking, these discourses function as strange attractors where a trajectory exhibits

random behaviour within a spatial boundary. While a central, fixed point attracts an

orbit, the trajectory of that orbit never joins or intersects with itself. However, in a true

dynamic system there are no fixed points. That is, attractors are not stable, fixed points

but are themselves transitory. And, as the number of attractors increase, so too does the

potential for freedom in the system (Gleick, 1987:135-140). Laclau and Mouffe

acknowledge this same point stating:

We can thus talk of a growing complexity and fragmentation of advanced industrial

societies --not in the sense that... they are more complex than earlier societies; but in the

sense that they are constituted around a fundamental asymmetry. This is the asymmetry

existing between a growing proliferation of differences--a surplus of meaning of the

'social'--and the differences encountered by any discourse attempting to fix those same

differences as moments of a stable articulatory structure (1985:96).

The object of interest then, is no longer the trajectory but the attractors themselves. Like

discursive practices, strange attractors have infinite modes, infinite dimensions, and

infinite degrees of freedom within a finite space. In an interdependent system, however,

there are no fixed points (Gleick, 1987:137). What constitutes an overdetermined

discursive practice depends on the strength of the attractor itself. The stronger the

attractor, the more finite the field becomes; and, the stronger the attractor, more orbital

elements are drawn into the field. It is within this field that the subject is able to make

nodal points. However, because the subject exists as a dynamic field, it is not only

drawn to multiple nodal points but is able to self-reflexively become aware of those

same attractors that are hegemonic articulations and comprise the subject's environment.

Much in the same way that the dichotomy between order and disorder has been

destabilized in complexity theory, the subject of Laclau and Mouffe has always already

been an adaptive, complex system which is neither and both fixed and unfixed, totalized

and detotalized. Unlike modernist theories of the individual, the subject of complexity is

both unified and fragmented, freed of the influences of Hegelian rationalism. Laclau and

Mouffe have simultaneously been able to destabilize and integrate elements of both the

totalized and detotalized subject into a coherent theory of discourse, subjectivity,

identity and action by demonstrating that the subject is a neither/both field. Contained

within this field is the capacity to balance both subjectivity and agency simultaneously.


The subject then, is a system which is subject to the same conditions found in non-linear,

complex systems including sensitivity to initial conditions, feedback loops, bifurcations,

strange attractors, and uncertainty.

Laclau and Mouffe's theory of the subject overcomes the binary opposition between

modern and postmodern theories of subjectivity. The similarities in their construction of

the subject as neither/and or/both fixed and unfixed shares with complexity theory the

ability to describe a dynamic, complex system that ebbs and flows across, through, and

over space. Our reading of Laclau and Mouffe through the lens of complexity also

suggests that complexity theory can be utilized as a means of coping with many of the

same problems faced by contemporary social theory. Whether Laclau and Mouffe were

formally influenced by complexity theory, or whether their theory of the subject simply

parallels complexity theory is unclear. What is clear, however, is that it is in emergent

complexity where the contradiction between hegemonic reductionism and fragmented

relativism can be resolved (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1994:569).

Control the Head/Control the Body

John Casti keenly directs us to the notion that complexity is inherently a subjective

concept. The idea that something is "complex," then, is dependent on how systems are

being examined and who is examining them. "Just like truth, beauty, good and evil,

complexity resides as much in the eye of the beholder as it does in the structure and

behaviour of a system itself" (Casti, 1994:270). However, Casti goes on to say that despite

the sometimes arbitrary use of the term, objective measures of complexity do exist: for

Casti an amoeba is less complex than an elephant under any definition. Thus, while

complexity theory deconstructs the modernist notion that complete knowledge and total

control are possible, it also positions itself as a true and totalizing theory. This flaw

might be fatal, but seems less so if the terms of description are inverted. We would

prefer to say that if complexity theory asserts something like a totality, it is a totality of

difference and ambiguity; if complexity is a theory of unity and objectivity, it is

simultaneously a theory of fragmentation and relativism.

Thus, our paper has been written at a nodal point, an extremity or singularity, at which

modern knowledge explodes into new territory, or implodes and ceases to be, perhaps

leaving the field clear enough for other forms to emerge, organize, and propagate

themselves. Either way, and likely in some combination of both ways, these forms will

be quite literally postmodern. Postmodern as hypermodern, bringing further realms into

the empire of signs that constitutes the natural-social scientific project. Postmodern as

premodern, bringing back the non-signifying speech of the untamed and the unknown,

and simply leaving it in place or, better yet, even listening to it, becoming it now and

then.


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